


Saturation

by Saathi1013



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 15:47:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21914311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saathi1013/pseuds/Saathi1013
Summary: The trio are soulmates, and it'sterriblyinconvenient for all of them.  They muddle through.(Set in a world where touching your soulmate allows you to start to see color in the world around you - but it fades until the next time you touch, unless you cement the bond somehow.)
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo/Gaby Teller
Comments: 30
Kudos: 118
Collections: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Winter Holiday Gift Exchange 2019





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coaldustcanary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/gifts).

> Dear coaldustcanary: apologies ahead of time for this being unfinished. Working retail during the holidays was more stressful than anticipated, but this story WILL be finished by the end of next week. I hope the holidays are treating you well and that you enjoy what I do already have posted.

Napoleon Solo has always been able to see color.

It’s not impossible, but the odds are one in a million, or so a medic once told him. Napoleon had been recovering from a bullet graze that had gotten infected in the field, and the painkillers made him chatty. He still has the scar, a long slanted line over his bottom ribs. And he can still see color: there’s been none of that fading-in-and-out business over the years that everyone talks about, so it’s not that he’s found his soulmate and lost them somewhere along the way.

He told the first woman he ever loved he could see color, and she responded, with all sincerity, “That means you don’t have a soulmate.” She seemed genuinely heartbroken for him. The relationship didn’t last long, after that. Though personally, he blames enlistment more than thwarted romanticism, in that case.

She’s not the only person he’s told. Sometimes he mentions it outright, sometimes he alludes to it, but most times he lets people assume what they want. People think he’s _ safe _ if he has a soulmate: more steady, more reliable, more trustworthy. Unlikely to make off with the jewelry or the spouse.

It’s an... _ entertaining _ assumption to play with.

Seeing color comes in handy in other ways. Art appreciation, certainly. Monet is a little bland for his taste, but a good Rothko can move him to tears. And it’s always interesting to see at what point in their career an artist met their soulmate; their work often changes dramatically afterwards. Van Gogh was the classic example, but he wasn’t the only one.

Having always been able to see color, Napoleon doesn’t know what kind of revelation it must be to meet one’s soulmate and see the world bloom. For him, color simply _ is_.

He wouldn’t give it up for anything, though. Even if it does mean that if he meets his soulmate - if he _ has _ a soulmate - he’ll never know.

* * *

Gaby didn’t believe in soulmates. The world was dreary, her life was dreary, and she didn’t expect either to change.

Until Waverly found her.

No, the world didn’t bloom into color when he took her hand, inclining his head over it slightly like she’s misplaced royalty. But when he offered her eventual escape in exchange for her help, she started to believe that maybe - just _ maybe _ \- there’s a whole spectrum out there waiting for her.

* * *

Soulmates were an outdated conceit. Top scientists had other explanations for the phenomenon, less superstitious and more rational, more suited to the modern Soviet Union. It went against the best interests of the collective, after all, to be tied so strongly to one other person that their touch could literally affect how you saw the world. No, no. It was a common, natural part of the process of ageing, like puberty or menopause or male pattern baldness, triggered by pheromones instead of something so nebulous and unreliable as _fate_.

Still, the romanticism of soulmates is hard to shake from the collective consciousness; great Russian literature relied upon it, upon the wax-wane of the colors of a bond not yet anchored, upon the loss of color when a soulmate passed away, even upon the possibility — rare in reality — of multiple soulmates: solitary widowers resigned to a life of grayscale rediscovering color again through the fickleness of fate, only to lose it again.

Illya is a good son of _ Rodina-Mat. _ He has never been to church; he follows orders; he trusts the will of his superiors.

And yet… he remembers his mother’s stories of meeting his father. He remembers the expression on her face as she described the first bloom of color as their hands touched, disorienting and thrilling. He remembers her stopping in the middle of the kitchen, stricken, eyes staring out at a world that had abruptly lost all color. That was how they’d found out that his father had died.

So. Despite it being a bourgeois delusion, Illya believes in soulmates.

He tells no one. It becomes another secret he keeps, along with all the others he swallows in his line of work, but this one belongs only to him.

* * *


	2. During

She doesn’t notice it at first. It’s dark, and they’re being chased, and there are gunshots, and then a seven-foot tall Russian operative is_ tearing apart her car_, so perhaps she can be forgiven for not noticing.

It could have happened when she passed Napoleon the gun, in its brown paper bag. It could have happened when he reached across her to roll down her window and instructed her to climb out her permanently-wedged car and into a stranger's apartment. It could have happened when he said “hug me” and she did, clinging to him as they swung across barbed wire and over a minefield to freedom.

She doesn’t notice it when it happens, is the point.

She notices it when they get to the safe house. Napoleon sweeps open the door with a flourish, and while the shabby exterior is matched by its unimpressive interior, there’s something… _ odd _ about it that makes her catch her breath when she realizes. 

_ Color_.

She looks at Napoleon, startled, and there’s something apologetic about his smile before it drops abruptly. His _ eyes _ are…

_ Blue_, her mind supplies. _Very, very blue._ Is that normal?

He’s frowning, now. Gaby lifts her chin. “This isn’t a 'chic little hotel'.” She steps into the small sitting room and scans her surroundings, recognizing colors from descriptions she’s read in books and magazines. The straggling green of a dying plant on a windowsill, with one stubborn violet flower wilting on its stem. More blue and green, on the battered spine of a paperback book, discarded on a side table. Blue on the wallpaper in the kitchen she can see through the doorway towards the back of the apartment.

It takes her another minute of exploration to realize something else: there’s no red anywhere. A bowl of fruit sits on the kitchen counter, and the slightly over-ripe orange is still stubbornly gray, as is the spotted banana and the bruised apple.

God, _ bananas!_ She hasn’t had one since she was a child. She snatches it up, peeling it open, expecting a brighter interior, but no. Still gray.

It tastes amazing, though. It reminds her of being young, when her father…

_ Her father. _ She has a _ mission_. She doesn’t have time for a _ soulmate_. Gaby finishes the banana, finding Napoleon watching her with a narrow-eyed gaze.

“My handler will be here in half an hour,” he says. “Until then…”

Gaby doesn’t want to talk about the glaring upheaval of her life. This wasn’t what Waverly told her to expect, and having a soulmate as part of the deal is the _least_ of her worries. Napoleon’s antics have drawn the attention of the Russians. They’ll have to leave the country soon, if not immediately. She didn’t even have time to grab her emergency bag from the trunk of her car. And she doesn’t know if she’s supposed to _ tell _ him that she’s Waverly’s agent, too. Probably better to keep that to herself. If she can contact Waverly, he might be able to advise her — but she can’t contact Waverly without tipping her hand.

She scowls at Napoleon, unhappy with the whole mess. “Is there anything else to eat?”

“I think I can rustle something up.” Napoleon smiles, something like relief tingeing his voice, as if he’s glad she’s dodging the obvious issue hanging between them.

While he cooks, she stays in the kitchen and watches, partly because her first impulse is to stay away from him and all the complications he represents, and she’s irritated at herself for her own cowardice. But also: she wants to take his measure. Her life is in his hands, and if the fading blues around her is any indication, their lives will be inextricably linked.

At least he’s handsome, in a too-polished kind of way. It’s almost like a fairytale: dashing man sweeps into her hum-drum life and whisks her off to an adventure full of color and excitement. Except he’s ruined months of planning and preparation for his little stunt, and she doesn’t _ need _ a soulmate right now.

The wallpaper is fading to gray. She considers stealing one of his chopped mushrooms and ‘accidentally’ brushing up against his forearm, where his rolled-up sleeves have exposed skin. Just for the novelty. Maybe she’ll see red this time, or orange, or yellow. Maybe the flame of the burner will blossom into brilliance, his cheeks will gain a flush of color.

She keeps her hands to herself.

* * *

Napoleon has always been able to see color.

Or so he thought.

One touch of Gaby’s skin — whenever it happened, he’s not sure — and all his previous assumptions were upended. Her skin was brighter, her lips more rosy, glints of auburn in her hair gleaming like a copper penny. Even the dull browns of the safe house were richer, deeper.

Such a contrary little slip of a thing, to change his worldview entirely. He wants to take her to a museum, hold her hand as they walk around the exhibits so that he can rediscover everything, from the embroidery on antique wall hangings to the broad brushstrokes of paintings. God, if he loved Rothko before, what will those pieces look like _ now_?

It takes Napoleon a long time to realize that not _ every _ color has bloomed into new brilliance. The wallpaper in the kitchen remains a pale, watery grey-blue. Maybe it’s meant to be subtle. Or maybe that’s something that will come with a cemented bond.

The question is: will she _ want _ to cement the bond? If their connection is romantic, there’s an easy way to find out. He’s taken enough willing women to bed, but Gaby seems indifferent to his charms, almost defiantly avoiding the subject of color all together, though he’d seen the surprise in her face as she’d explored the safe house, putting any incipient worry of a one-sided bond to rest for good.

She doesn’t want him, which: fair enough. They’ve just met, and things have been all business between them, thus far. And the CIA will likely use her as it pleases to find her father, discarding her when it’s done… leaving Napoleon the only person she knows on this side of the Wall. Hardly a romantic prospect, being her _ only _ prospect.

Not that Fate gives anybody much choice, when it comes to soulmates. That’s why Napoleon was always glad to be left out of the whole business.

Now that he _has_ a soulmate, he hadn’t realized just how freeing it had been to live his life as if he never had one. What will Gaby think, when she finds out about his… less-than-legal habits? Besides stealing women across the Wall for the CIA, naturally. Will she demand he _ stop_? Will she expect him to find a normal, reliable job once his indentured servitude at the Agency is over?

To hell with that. If she’s his soulmate, then he’s also hers, and she’ll have to take the good with the bad.

Assuming they survive this assignment, of course.

* * *

Illya’s first thought is that he’s been drugged. He’d attacked Solo without a moment’s thought for the other man by the urinals, who could have been hiding a dart gun in his coat. How else to explain the sudden, dizzying change in his surroundings? Momentum and training carry him through, sending them both through the — bright, strange, _ wrong _ — partitions of the bathroom stalls, then tumbling to the floor, grappling until Illya has Solo’s head locked tight in his elbow.

It’s only after they’ve been given orders to work together and they’re facing each other alone across a small cafe table that it truly sinks in: he’s seeing color—

_ green grass, blue sky, green and white and gray striped umbrellas — _

because he and Napoleon —

_ No. _

Perhaps the scientists are right. Perhaps soulmates are a superstition; the onset of color vision could have a more rational explanation.

Because it is _not_ possiblethat Napoleon Solo is Illya’s _ soulmate_.

His mounting anger is as much at fate as Solo’s barbs. Can Solo see it, too? Does that explain his smugness, his stillness when Illya flips the table, as if he’s bone-deep certain that Illya won’t harm him?

Illya wants to wipe that expression off his face, wants to strangle him with his blue tie. But they must _ work together _ on this assignment, so he does not.

Color fades once Illya leaves, draining out of the world in increments until the grass is as dull as before, the sky as clear and untinted.

And if Illya has anything to say about it, that’s how it will stay.

* * *

Well. Now Napoleon knows who carries the rest of his colors.

_ Son _of a_ bitch. _

_ * * * _

While Napoleon was “taking a walk in the park” — his explanation for leaving so early in the morning, which Gaby didn’t buy in the slightest — she slipped out a window, found a bar down the block with a payphone in the back, and called Waverly. They use code phrases until he secures his end of the line, but even then, the conversation is careful and brief, and her instructions are clear. She is to keep her true allegiance to herself, and play along with Napoleon until and unless his actions conflict with her own goals, in which case she is to do whatever it takes to cut him loose and proceed on her own.

She is back at the safe house by the time Napoleon returns; he looks a little battered around the edges though his demeanor is as unruffled as ever.

“Rough crowd at the park?” she asks blandly, smoothing his crumpled lapel. She is careful not to touch his skin. He lifts his hand and she steps out of reach.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” He gives her a broad smile, and she can tell he’s lying. She raises an eyebrow. “Well. I met my handler. We have our instructions.” They are to go shopping, then on to Rome, where her father has been spotted. She expected the latter, but the former? To her incredulous expression, he gives her a slow scan. “You can’t very well meet him for the first time in over a decade looking like _that_.”

She’s wearing a pair of dark clam-diggers and a sleeveless button-down shirt, both provided in a plain paper sack by the agents last night. Everything underneath is from yesterday — or longer, if she’s being honest about the bra.

Sighing, Gaby admits that Napoleon is right.

The shopping trip turns out to be more of a trial than getting across the wall, frankly. Napoleon keeps _ handing _ her things — clothing, jewelry, shoes. She tries to avoid skin contact, but it’s impossible, and the colors around her brighten each time, slowly dimming again in between the incidental touches. _ Is he doing it on purpose? _ she wonders, but he studiously ignores her sharp, questioning glances, seemingly preoccupied by picking out the most expensive clothes he can find.

Gaby’s already irritable by the time the Russian shows up… and when he does, her temper snaps.

She pulls off the heavy earrings, the necklace, tossing them aside, fully prepared to storm all the way to the British Embassy and demand that Waverly send someone to come pick her up _ this instant. _

Napoleon catches her arm, and everything blue and green and violet all turns screamingly vivid for an instant before he lets her go, holding his hands up placatingly. It’s only then that she notices that she’s still wearing clothing from the store.

Resigned, Gaby lets Napoleon talk her down. This is still the best way to get to her father. She lets them pick out her clothes and bicker over accessories; she rolls her eyes at the contentious voices she can hear through the thin walls of the changing room.

Fine. They can keep each other distracted. The more they do, the less she’ll have to deal with them.

She pulls on the gray-and-white patterned dress Kuryakin picked out for her, puts on the jewelry and the hat and the shoes to match.

They both _ stare _ when she exits, and she lifts her chin, not used to being the center of attention. After a moment and a cutting remark from Kuryakin, Napoleon takes his leave, and she's left alone with the Russian who'd tried to kill them less than twenty-four hours earlier. He's dressed in black and blue like a bruise, and she's acutely aware that he could hoist her over her shoulder and take her back to his people, to the other side of the Wall, if he so chose.

She wishes Napoleon had stayed, at least for a little while.

Illya turns her around to inspect his fashion choices, and she recoils from his touch. But it’s too late: the store _ blooms _ around them. The pattern on her dress is… red? Orange? The metallic accents on the furniture, by the ceilings are… not silver but gold, or maybe brass. The walls are pink, shades darker than the flush of Illya’s cheeks — she never knew how many colors one person’s skin could hold.

_ No_, she thinks. _ No, no. It can’t be. _

Illya blinks, and she notices that his eyes are blue, too. Paler than Napoleon’s, or maybe Napoleon has been gone long enough for blue to fade for her.

His hands are gentle — so, _so_ gentle — as he gives her the ring. She scowls at it, at him calling her ‘my woman,’ as if she is a thing to possess. This is the man — _ one of the men? Can that happen? _ — who’s her soulmate?

She should have gone to the Embassy while she still had the chance.

* * *

If Illya had his choice, Gaby would have been closer to his choice of soulmate than Solo. She's beautiful, sharp-witted, and strong-willed. He likes his women strong.

She also hates him, and for good reason. Their first encounter hadn't exactly been _romantic_.

But if they _are_ soulmates, all was not lost — he simply has to prove that he's more than her first impression of him. He can do that.

_If_ they are soulmates.

He's still not sure he hadn't been drugged, earlier. Something to make his color vision develop at the next touch of someone else's skin? He hasn't heard of the Americans developing such a thing, but it sounds like something the CIA would cook up, to throw off enemy agents.

In which case, neither Gaby nor Napoleon are his soulmate. Certainly not _both _of them. Whoever heard of _two_ soulmates, anyway?

* * *


	3. During (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! More fic! But... to literally nobody's surprise, this has gotten away from me and it's STILL not finished. So consider this a sorbet course. ;)

They all try to avoid touching each other, in Rome. It works… until it doesn't.

Gaby has to restrain Illya when the thugs accost them in the ruins. They both see red, before the men leave, and then Gaby gets as far away from him as she can, lobbing acerbic remarks from a perch atop the tumbled stones.

The next morning, Napoleon finds himself in the elevator with Gaby, each pretending they don't know the other, and when a woman with an oversized shoulder bag gets on, their hands brush when they try to shuffle out of her way. The rest of the elevator ride is filled with gold (the woman's hair, for Napoleon) and green (the color of Gaby's dress today) as they steadfastly refuse to look at each other.

Illya pulls Gaby away from the Vinciguerra party with a hand on her elbow, and he spends the next few hours bathed in the red of his darkroom in the lavatory. She spends it pretending to read the paper and counting how long it takes for the yellow accents in their room to fade to gray (Napoleon arrives before that happens).

Napoleon saves Illya from drowning, and they escape the Vinciguerra compound with blues and violets and greens blurring in the periphery as they share a stolen Vespa back to the hotel.

Gaby climbs up onto a table and dares them to touch her. Napoleon concedes to Illya, having already suspected their connection from the way they wheel around each other, the way Gaby usually keeps her distance from them both in equal measure but keeps getting drawn back, especially to Illya. And if Napoleon has them both as soulmates, then there's no reason they each can't have two, too. If they cement their bonds with each other, then Napoleon has no obligation to do so with either of them, and he can return to his life from before. (No matter how drab it seems now.)

Then Gaby betrays them both, and the world is gray, gray, gray.

* * *

Gaby hadn't told Waverly that they were all soulmates. He's not sure he wishes she had: he'd have had to give her the same orders, only with additional doubt in her abilities to pull it off. 

That doubt would have been unfounded, as it turns out, so it's better that he hadn't known.

Then he finds them huddled together in the rain, Alexander Vinciguerra's body downhill from them, staring unblinking at the sky. Illya is cradling Gaby in his lap, and Napoleon is chafing her hands between his palms, trying to rub warmth back into her. They all look like drowned rats.  Waverly turns his back on them, lets them have some privacy and some time with the medics before getting their reports. His technicians are already clustered around the bomb.

"Illya's hurt," Waverly hears Gaby say, and he looks over his shoulder to see her wiping Illya's face, looking for the cut she knows is there.

All Waverly can see is the gray mud that splatters all three of them. He'd been able to see color once — for three years, ten weeks, and four days, but who counts that kind of thing? — but everything has been gray for a long time, now.

Gaby must be able to see crimson on Illya's face.

"I'm fine," Illya mutters, trying to deflect the medics towards her.

"She's right, Peril; that's an awful lot of blood," Napoleon says.

"It's not all mine." Illya gives them both a tight-lipped smile. "Besides, you look about as bad, Cowboy."

Waverly turns back to the bomb, his mind doing the math while he gets the bad news about the warhead.

Later, when the mission is over, he'll review his files on all three of them. They've all tested as colorblind, and while there are some reports to the contrary in Napoleon's file — he's a slippery one; Waverly will have to keep an eye on him — he's never stayed in contact with anyone long enough for them to be a proper soulmate.

Waverly makes a few calls, pulls in a few favors. They really are an effective team.

Gaby arrives at his hotel suite not five minutes after he's done making the arrangements.

"Good, you're right on time." He pulls out a thick manila envelope. "Here you go, your new citizenship papers." The packet also contains airplane tickets, a tidy sum in American dollars, and the keys to her father's house in New Mexico, in case she wants it. "You can set yourself up with a little auto shop, if that interests you." She looks ready to go, half turned towards the door. "Or... if you'd rather a bit more excitement, you can keep working for me."

"Oh?" Her eyebrows lift, and she pivots back towards him, already caught. "Doing what?"

"More of the same, world-saving stuff. I've been given permission to expand my department, put together a team, and I'd like you to be on it."

Now she frowns. "...who else would be on this team?" She really  _ is _ quite clever.

Waverly feels the hand of Fate moving through him like a benevolent wave.  _ Better than opium _ , he thinks. "I'm glad you ask…"

* * *

Waverly leaves them alone on the balcony, his parting words ringing in the air. They are bound, now. A team, united by a name and a common cause.

The world doesn't bloom around them. Fate, it seems, expects more of them for the bond to be anchored.

Napoleon pours Gaby a drink.

* * *


End file.
